Devotion
by Darlin
Summary: Logan's beloved Ororo takes diligent and loving care of him while he wishes she wouldn't. He wishes that wishes could really come true and then he'd wish for only one thing.


**Devotion – by Darlin**

 **A/N –** I wrote this in 2008, a kind of What If and decidedly AU RoLo.

 **Disclaimer –** Of course I make no profit and mean no copyright infringement.

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"Star light, star bright, I wish I may, I wish I might have this wish I wish tonight." The voice sounds tired but tinged with hope. She doesn't know I've heard her little prayer whispered from what seems like so far off. She thinks I'm asleep.

She still has hope. I love that about her. It's foolish but sweet. It reminds me of when we first met. She was full of life and dreams, of hope and joy. She would wish on the first star of the night even though I'd tease her about it. I don't know if her dreams'll ever come true.

She was so young, her enthusiasm like a little child's but it was contagious. We'd spend hours together at her house, talking, laughing, just getting to know each other. We'd talk till the stars came out and be surprised how the time had flown. Our first kiss was in a dilapidated tree house out behind her house. I helped her down but didn't let her go. I'd wanted to kiss her since the first day I met her before summer started.

Her hands gently touch my face before she rests her head upon my chest, placing the length of her body against mine. I know she looks at me with love even when I can't see her blue eyes peering at me. My wife.

We married when she was too young. We'd had a disagreement some years before we got married. She'd lied to me about her age. What I thought was fresh and unique in such a mature young woman was simple youthfulness.

I was new in town, met her through a buddy I fought with in the war. He'd saved my life twice. I never forgot. I owed him. I came to his town because of that but he ended up helping me. He heard a high school there needed an history teacher and damn if I didn't get the job. They were that desperate I guess.

All summer long I'd hung out with him and his sister. She was fun and sweet and beautiful. I fell hard. I was even ready to tell him that I wanted to marry her. I waited though, couldn't find the courage. But I kept planning what I'd say, how I'd explain it, just over and over in my head and I mean every day. Then the first day of school who should walk into my classroom?

She said it wasn't a lie, that I'd never asked her age. And no, I hadn't, just assumed because she was tall and was really well developed, not like most fifteen year old's! But I lived my life by a strict code of honor. It was a lie by omission if you're a fifteen year old girl flirting with a twenty-six year old man. There was no way I could go on seeing her. I guess she hated me after that, wouldn't talk in class, ignored me altogether when I was forced to call upon her.

Things went from bad to worse the next year. I dragged her down to the principal's office one day when one of the kids tattled on her, said she was writing notes, that I always let her get away with stuff. I was shaking I was so angry. Her note was full of 'I hate you' comments but ended with a line that simply said she was sorry. I mean how do you stop loving someone? She didn't seem to know any more than me. I shoved her hard against a locker and I kissed her. It wasn't even a real kiss, ragged, desperate, but I pulled back real fast then punched a locker. No one saw what I'd done but I knew. I ordered her to the principals office, she started to give me lip and I yelled and she went.

That night she didn't come home. Her brother called me and we searched everywhere we could think of. It rained that night, a cold, bitter downpour and I'd never been so scared, not even in the war. I knew I'd have to tell him what I'd done. It was my fault she was missing. If anything had happened to her it would be my fault and how would I be able to live with that?

Sheer desperation made me remember the tree house out back and it was there that I found her, soaked, shivering and barely conscious. All that night we were afraid for her life as her temperature soared. We did all we could to keep it down and finally succeeded. By then her brother had figured out how I felt about her. He told us when she was eighteen we could be married. She got better quickly and though we never kissed or even touched hands after that we each counted down the days, nearly six hundred thirty days!

The day of our wedding they shot me. I carried my beautiful brown skinned bride over the threshold. She kissed me and then I fell. I didn't feel pain at first. I heard a shot reverberating from behind us and knew then that they'd won. She was over me, screaming and crying and I was screaming at her, telling her to get away only I couldn't hear my voice. That's all I remember.

She never abandoned me. I was a white man and she was black. Why did they have to hate us? They call it miscegenation but we didn't care then and she doesn't care now. We waited two years to be together. And like Jacob I would've waited seven years, fourteen years, for _her_. But someone wanted to rid the neighborhood of her brother and her even though we were past the sixties. Now we're together every day. The house is empty just as they wanted for she seldom leaves my side and her brother works two jobs to support them. He comes sometimes to see me or to try to convince her to let me go. I hear him sometimes, his voice lifeless, hopeless, defeated. I wish I could tell him to believe, to have faith, not to let the bigots win.

I can feel her near and it lightens my heart yet it's a heavy burden too. I hear her voice. She sings to me, her soft voice thrills me. She talks nonstop sometimes, idle chatting, no longer the half woman half child tone she had when I first met her; her voice has matured, sweet music to my ears though her tone is often sober, even mournful. But it is never harsh, never upset, always loving.

I wish I could reach out, touch her, hold her, tell her, show her how much I appreciate that she's here for me. But there's no way I can.

She's tied to me as I am to her, unable to live fully, a slave to devotion and love – both of us, stagnant, doomed.

I wish she would let me go, leave me, be done with me and move on. Can you imagine living like she is? Spending every free moment with an immobile, comatose spouse, with little hope of revival and every false sign of recovery leading only to deeper despair?

They thought I'd died the day they shot me and though I didn't I wish I had if only for her sake. I'm a vegetable living on machines and love, unable to move or speak to tell her to let go. I'm selfish too. I need her. I loved her so hard when she was so young.

If I could see that first star lighting the night sky so bright you might think I'd wish to wake and be with her but that isn't what I'd wish for. If wishes could come true then I would wish that _I_ could let go, that I was strong enough to will myself to die so she could live.

 **~Finis~**


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